


Crimean Shore

by merle_p



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: 1960s, Angst with a Happy Ending, Backstory, Breaking Up & Making Up, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Cold War, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Extremely Dubious Consent (Between Original Characters), Flashbacks, France (Country), Getting Back Together, Honeytrap, Hopeful Ending, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Mental Instability, Miscommunication, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spies & Secret Agents, Stalinist Russia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 04:36:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4815281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merle_p/pseuds/merle_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Does he ever talk about his past?” Napoleon asks, the words escaping his mouth before he can tell himself to hold them back. He coughs. “You know. During all those fake romantic nights?” </p><p>“His past?” Gaby asks slowly, and gives him a curious look. </p><p>“Yeah, you know,” Napoleon gestures, feeling tired and out of his depth. “Lovers. Family. Russia. That kind of thing.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crimean Shore

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Крымское Побережье](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5031583) by [casmund](https://archiveofourown.org/users/casmund/pseuds/casmund)



> Please make sure to read the warnings for this story. Overall, it's technically not very explicit, but there are a lot of things implied that relate to psychological and sexual abuse, non-consensual sex and childhood trauma. If you would like to know more details before deciding whether to read this story, see endnotes for explanation. 
> 
> For translations, see endnotes as well.
> 
> Thank you to Desscard at AO3, as well as r_blackcat and all the other folks on little-details over at LJ for their help with Russian honorifics and forms of address!

 

“Ouch,” Napoleon says mildly and presses two fingertips against his bleeding bottom lip. He is more curious than outraged – it’s not like he hasn’t been punched in the face by a romantic interest before, but usually it tends to happen before or after sex, not right in the middle of it.

He sits back against the headboard and half-heartedly tries to keep the blood from dripping onto the once pristine hotel bed sheets as he watches Illya pace the carpet, back and forth.

Illya is agitated, but he doesn’t seem that angry, rather upset and perhaps a little embarrassed – as if he hadn’t actually intended to slap him, as if it had been an instinctive reaction more than anything else, one he’s ashamed of now that it’s done. He keeps his head down, hands clenching and unclenching uselessly at his sides, a dangerous mixture of power and helpless frustration, and Napoleon is reminded of a Rilke poem he once read, the one about the caged tiger prowling behind steel bars.

“I told you not to call me that,” Illya bursts out suddenly, coming to an abrupt halt, and there is a dull hopelessness in his eyes when he stares at Napoleon, accusingly.

Napoleon blinks in confusion, then he inclines his head and smiles ruefully when it clicks. “You did at that,” he concedes, because it’s true and because there is no arguing with Illya when he’s like this. “I’m sorry,” he adds for good measure, and really, he is, even though he doesn’t quite understand what exactly he’s got to be sorry for.

Illya opens his mouth, closes it, shakes his head and returns to his pacing. Napoleon wistfully looks down at his cock, which is sadly flagging since the sexual crackle in the air has made room for an entirely more uncomfortable kind of tension. He sighs.

“Any chance I can convince you to come back to bed?”

Illya pauses again, and for a brief moment, something like longing shines up in his gaze. Then he blinks, and the hint of vulnerability is gone, leaving behind the emotionless mask Napoleon hasn’t really seen since he watched Illya tear off the back of Gaby’s car through the rear window during that fateful night in Berlin.

“This is bad idea,” Illya says, and Napoleon’s heart plummets at his words.

“No, come on,” he protests. “I’m really sorry I offended your Russian sensibilities, I swear it’s not going to happen again, but why don’t you come over here so I can make it up to you?”

Illya takes two steps towards the bed, and for but a moment, Napoleon lets himself hope. Then Illya bends down to pick his discarded shirt up from the floor. His fingers are shaking when he tries to do up the buttons, and Napoleon has to fight down the urge to lean in and offer his help.

“Illya,” he tries again, more softly, hesitantly, because he wants to understand how an evening that started so promisingly could unravel so completely this quickly. “Peril, what is going on?”

Illya shakes his head without looking at him, cursing quietly in Russian when he fails on his third try to slip the last button through its hole.

“It is better like this,” he finally says, and Napoleon is sure that he means it, even though he doesn’t sound convinced at all. In fact, he sounds lost, and sad, and terrified, and that more than anything scares Napoleon, because despite the danger they face every day, he has never heard Illya sound frightened before.

“If you think so,” he says reluctantly.

Illya nods fervently and looks up at him with dark, stormy eyes. “I –“ He pauses briefly, then shakes his head. “I’m sorry, cowboy,” he says, unexpectedly. He leaves before Napoleon can do as much as open his mouth, the door falling shut behind him with a bang.

“Crap,” Napoleon swears and thumps the back of his head against the wall. For a moment, he stares at the ceiling morosely, then he sighs and slides out of bed.

Somewhere out there, he is certain of it, is a bottle of cognac calling his name.

 

Illya remembers: clay-colored cliffs, rocks, and the sea, dark blue. Remembers water lapping at his toes, blood from a cut in the sole of his foot. Remembers his mother’s hand in his hair, his father’s laugh.

Crimea is beautiful around this time of year, or so they say.

 

The Hotel Negresco has a gorgeous bar, tasteful and elegant, all shining walnut woodwork and dark red curtains. More importantly, it is well stocked with different types of brandies, and the bartender is happy to introduce them to Napoleon, one at a time.

Gaby finds him there, staring gloomily into his third cognac. She doesn’t say anything about the state he’s in, simply slides onto the bar stool next to him and orders pastis in endearingly awkward, stumbling French.

Napoleon watches her smile at the bartender as she accepts her drink, watches her pour some water from the small carafe, watches the transparent liquid turn milky-white with the addition of water, a miniscule spectacle he never gets tired of, even after seeing it so many times.

When Gaby is satisfied with the color of her drink, she takes a first sip and carefully sets the glass down again. “I assumed you would be spending the evening with Illya,” she says casually, and Napoleon has to force himself not to flinch.

“I’m not his keeper,” he says airily and spins his cognac glass in circles on the shiny surface of the bar.

Gaby gives him an unimpressed stare.

“Please,” she says quietly, “do me a favor and don’t treat me like I’m stupid. I know that you two –“

She breaks off quickly, with a cautious look at the bartender, but her omission is as telling as actual words, and Napoleon feels himself turn cold. He may be reckless, but he is not suicidal, and this is the kind of thing that could easily cost them both their jobs, if not their lives. He is well aware that neither the CIA nor the KGB have qualms about making someone disappear if they do not approve of their life choices, special agents or not. There is a reason why Napoleon tends to sleep with women nine times out of ten, and when he indulges in more risqué encounters, it’s always discreet, quick, anonymous, or for the sake of a job.

It’s a practice that has served him well for many years. Illya though, Illya is the anomaly, a steady thrum under his skin, an itch that couldn’t be relieved by picking up a bored rich housewife at a roulette table, by jerking off to a fantasy in the shower. It doesn’t even matter that Illya might not be able to look him in the eye again, Napoleon realizes with a jolt of fear. What he is feeling for Illya is dangerous, and the fact that he’s frustrated and worried only makes it worse.

“Gaby …” he says hesitantly, his voice sounding hollow to his own ears, and there must be something in his face, because she reaches over and settles a warm hand against his wrist.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m a modern woman, you know. I’m not going to tell. Truth be told –“ she shrugs, almost as if embarrassed, and toys with her glass of pastis. “Truth be told, I think it’s almost a relief to know why things did not work out, you know, between Illya and me.”

He frowns, dismayed, and she laughs quietly when she sees his face. “Honestly, it’s fine,” she says. “I’ve been over it for a long time. But I can’t help noticing that you are trying to drown yourself in what I’m sure is excellent cognac, while Illya is up there stomping around in his room like an angry bull, from the sounds of it. And while I can tell you as a friend that I do not care about what is going on between you two, as your partner I have to say that I’m a little worried about your focus on this job.”

“It’s nothing,” Napoleon sighs. “It won’t affect our work.” He looks down at his hands and wonders who he is trying to convince.

“Hm,” Gaby makes noncommittally. “So you won’t have any difficulties following Füssli around Nice together tomorrow while I look into the information we got from Waverly’s contact with the Swiss National Bank?”

He grimaces and winces when his split lip protests at the movement. Gaby’s eyes drop to his mouth, and her sardonic smile signals that she can guess the origin of his latest injury.

“Perhaps it’s better if you two comrades use your ‘newlyweds on honeymoon’ routine again,” he concedes, and runs his tongue over the cut in his lip. “Tried and tested method, right?” He chuckles, unhappily.

Gaby rolls her eyes. “We’ve definitely done it often enough,” she says dryly. “Of course, with the job I have, it’s probably the only kind of _Flitterwochen_ I’ll ever get, so I’m not going to complain. Besides,” she smirks, “Illya has become pretty good at playing the romantic since he’s loosened up a little, so it’s not exactly a hardship, I’ve got to say.”

“Does he ever talk about his past?” Napoleon asks, the words escaping his mouth before he can tell himself to hold them back. He coughs. “You know. During all those fake romantic nights?”

“His past?” Gaby asks slowly, and gives him a curious look.

“Yeah, you know,” Napoleon gestures, feeling tired and out of his depth. “Lovers. Family. Russia. That kind of thing.”

She thinks it over carefully. “Not really,” she finally says. “I don’t know much more than what’s in his file. Why don’t you ask him, if there is something you want to know?”

Napoleon shakes his head. “Never mind,” he says and downs the rest of his drink, then uses the glass to signal the barman for another round, because he really is not yet drunk enough. “It doesn’t matter,” he adds, and tells himself that he believes what he says.

 

His father is silent when they lead him away, but when he turns back to look at them one last time, there are tears in his eyes. It’s the first time Illya has seen his father cry, and it makes his heart beat in his chest so rapidly that for a moment, he thinks he might be sick.

When the car with his father drives away, the comrade Vasily Antonovich Sudoplatov does not leave. He sits down at their kitchen table, a tall, heavy man with grim features, stretches out his legs and takes off his hat as if he is at home, watching Illya’s mother prepare tea with shaking hands. The cup rattles against the saucer with a sharp clinking sound as she sets it down in front of him. When she lowers herself into a chair on the opposite side of the table, her own tea cup untouched, Illya steps closer to her, as quietly as he can, until her elbow almost brushes his side.

“This is your son, grazhdanka Kuryakina?” Sudoplatov asks idly, in between sips of his tea, and his mother puts a hand on Illya’s shoulder, index finger rubbing against his neck. “Yes,” she says quietly, her voice a strange mixture of pride, of affection, of defiance, of fear.

“Hm,” the man makes thoughtfully, and sets down his empty cup. “A beautiful child,” he says lightly and smiles, quick and sharp. “He comes after his mother.”

“You are too kind,” she says, her voice emotionless and polite, even as her grip on Illya’s shoulder tightens.

“Of course,” the man says smoothly and stands, picks up his hat. On his way to the door, he reaches out to pat Illya on the cheek, an overly intimate gesture, his calloused palm rough against Illya’s skin. His mother says nothing, but her fingers dig into Illya’s shoulder, painfully tight.

“I will return next week, grazhdanka,” Sudoplatov says, and Illya’s mother flinches slightly, her thumb twitching against Illya’s neck.

“I would not forgive myself if something happened to you or your boy, now that your husband has left.”

“I thank you for your support, grazhdanin sledovatel,” she says stiffly, but she does not stand to see him out, and never moves her hand from Illya’s back.

 

Monsieur Auguste Beauchene is conducting business in Nice, and his wife Florentine easily gets bored. She is not making a secret out of the fact that she is counting on Napoleon to rescue her from her _ennui_ : She has one slender hand set on Napoleon’s wrist, her red lips curved around an elegant cigarette holder, and over her shoulder, Napoleon can see Illya watching them from a corner table with narrow eyes.

It makes Napoleon feel childishly annoyed in a way he would usually be embarrassed about. But it’s been three days of useless surveillance and miserable frustration, three days of awkward politeness, three days of trying to prove to Gaby that they can still do their jobs perfectly fine, and Napoleon feels confused, and exhausted, and undeniably hurt.

“ _Deux autres, s’il-vous-plaît_ ,” Napoleon tells the barman, almost out of spite, and Florentine smiles, confident and pleased. He smiles back, pushes the glass of champagne in her direction with a wink, and allows himself to throw another fleeting glance in Illya’s direction, defiantly, rebelliously.

The table in the corner is empty.

And it shouldn’t matter, Napoleon thinks, while he is going through the motions, clinking glasses, smiling flirtatiously. He shouldn’t care whether Illya is experiencing a sudden bout of jealousy, should be glad that Illya has finally decided to give him space, but even as he thinks this, he finds himself sliding off his bar stool, setting his glass back onto the counter.

“ _Je suis désolé, ma cherie_ ,” he says with an apologetic smile, and doesn’t look back at Florentine’s disappointed face as he follows Illya out the door.

It’s a beautiful night, mild and clear, and the Promenade des Anglais is still busy at this hour, with tourists, young couples and a few locals walking their tiny dogs. Napoleon catches up with Illya two blocks up from the hotel: He has taken the short stairs from the Promenade down to the beach, and is standing with his back to the boardwalk, staring at the sea, hands in the pockets of his pants. The breeze is catching in his hair, the moonlight is casting shadows on his face, and for a moment Napoleon wants him so much he can hardly breathe.

Then Illya turns around and sees him approach, and the moment is over, the painful longing subsides, even if it lingers in the corners of Napoleon’s heart.

“I did not think I would see you before breakfast,” Illya says dryly, and there is no accusation in his voice, only resigned fatigue. “What happened to your friend?”

“Eh,” Napoleon shrugs and comes to stand next to him, mirroring his stance, staring out at the Mediterranean Sea. “I wasn’t in the mood.”

 _She wasn’t you_ , he doesn’t say, but Illya looks away quickly as if ashamed, as if he knows exactly what is on Napoleon’s mind.

“It’s beautiful out here,” Napoleon finally says, not able to stand the silence any longer, and Illya makes a noise of assent, a thoughtful hum.

“We should go back to hotel,” he responds, but his voice is reluctant, and he doesn’t move.

“I was thinking of stretching my legs for a bit,” Napoleon says and points up the beach, away from the hotel. “Would you care to accompany me?”

For a moment, he is certain that Illya is going to say no, but then the man nods, measured and steady.

“Yes,” he says quietly. “A walk would be good.”

They stroll up the beach at a slow pace, not really trying to get anywhere. Napoleon can feel sand running into his shoes, knows he’ll have to polish the leather tomorrow, but this moon shows him an Illya he has never seen before, and he’ll be damned if he misses his chance of knowing this side of him, too.

“We went on vacation to Crimea once,” Illya suddenly says, and Napoleon almost gives himself whiplash when he looks up at him in shock.

“I was little boy,” Illya continues, staring out across the water as if his mind is very far away. “It was first time I saw Black Sea. My father told me that on the other side was Turkey, but I did not believe him: The sea seemed so vast, it was impossible to think that it could have an end.” He pauses. “A month after we came back, the NKVD came to arrest him. It was a long time until I traveled to the Black Sea again. When I returned to shore, I could only think that it suddenly seemed very small.”

Napoleon swallows thickly. “I’m sorry,” he says, feeling inadequate and stunned, and thinks of the things he said about Illya’s father, the day after they met.

Illya shrugs and glances at him from the side, an almost-smile playing around the corners of his mouth.

“It was a very long time ago.”

“And yet,” Napoleon says slowly, “sometimes that doesn’t matter at all.”

“Perhaps not,” Illya says, and keeps walking. “But what can you do.”

 

His father has been gone for a week, and Vasily Antonovich Sudoplatov is drinking tea in their kitchen.

“Go to your room, Illyusha,” his mother says quietly, and does not look away from the man at the table. “Go to your room, and don’t come out until I tell you to.”

“ _Da, mama_ ,” Illya answers, the right thing to say, and Sudoplatov smiles, wide and lazy.

“He is a good boy,” he says, and his mother looks at him at last.

“Yes,” she says, but her smile is wane, as if she is too weak for anything else, and Illya retreats from the kitchen, fleeing from that horrible ghost of a smile.

There is yet daylight outside, and if it was any other week, he might play outside with Ilonochka, who lives in the green house down the street. But since Illya’s father has left, her parents won’t let her visit anymore, and he knows she got reprimanded severely when she tried.

His room is dark and quiet, the curtains drawn, and he moves to sit on his bed, only because it seems silly to stand. A lone seashell lies on the nightstand, souvenir from their summer holiday, and Illya picks it up, runs his palm over the uneven surface, back and forth. It used to house a sea snail, his father had said, _rapana venosa_ , but now it’s only an empty shell, and Illya traces the whorls and curves with a gentle, careful finger before pressing the opening against his ear. Sometimes, you can still hear the sea inside, his mother had said, but the only thing he hears are the voices from the kitchen, his mother agitated, Sudoplatov smug. Illya presses the shell harder against his ear, and thinks he can make out, very faintly, a humming sound, like the rolling of waves against the shore.

Down the hallway, his mother cries out, sudden and shrill. Illya flinches, and the shell slides from his fingers, hitting the floor with a crack. He stares at the shell where it has fallen, rolled halfway underneath the bed, but when he tries to bend down and reach for it, he finds himself frozen in place, and it is a long time before he is able to move.

 

As it happens, turning down Florentine Beauchene was a mistake, and not because Illya retreated to his room as soon as they came back from their moonlit walk along the shore. Rather, Gaby has discovered that Florentine’s husband Auguste is not merely selling soap to the hotel chains along the Côte d’Azur, he is also taking advantage of his business trip to buy safety deposit box passcodes from Swiss financier Urs Füssli, the man they came to Nice to investigate. There is still too much Nazi gold stored away in Swiss bank vaults, and too many people interested in it.

“So what now?” Gaby asks, frustrated, when they are reconvening in Napoleon’s hotel room the next day.

Napoleon rubs a hand over his chin and shrugs. “Now I try and make up to her that I left her hanging in the hotel bar last night.”

Illya makes a short, aborted noise, and Gaby frowns.

“You think you can convince her to give you another chance?”

Napoleon shows her his most confident smile. “I can always convince them to give me another chance,” he says, and ignores the voice in his head calling him out on his lie.

“I do not like this plan,” Illya says petulantly, staring at an empty stretch of wall behind Gaby’s head, and Napoleon resists the urge to bury his face in his hands. Illya has been acting stubborn since Gaby delivered the news, and it’s grating heavily on Napoleon’s nerves.

Gaby looks back and forth between the two of them, then she sighs, demonstratively and long-sufferingly. “I am going to check in with Waverly,” she says and rises to her feet. “By the time I get back, I expect you to have come to an agreement.” Her voice turns sharp. “Illya, if you don’t like the plan, come up with something better or keep quiet.”

She actually slams the door on her way out, and Illya finds Napoleon’s gaze in the following awkward silence, two school boys taken to task for acting up in class.

“You know,” Napoleon says casually, and leans back on the couch. “I get that you are not happy about this, but honestly, you were the one who called things off between us. I don’t know how you do things in Russia, but where I’m from, that means you don’t get a say in where I spend my nights anymore. Especially when it’s about a job.”

“It is not that,” Illya says quickly, even though the faint flush high on his cheeks tells Napoleon that it is at least a little bit about that, too.

“So what is it, then?” Napoleon asks, frustrated. “You want to play the honeypot game yourself?”

Illya actually rolls his eyes at that. “Yesterday you said you did not want to sleep with her, yes?” he asks. “Did you change your mind?”

Napoleon raises his brows and tries to figure out where this is going. “Not … particularly,” he shrugs.

“Then why do you do it?” Illya asks quietly, awkwardly, and Napoleon looks at him in surprise.

“This is what bothers you?” he laughs. “Illya, we do things we do not want to every day.”

“But this –“ Illya begins, and Napoleon interrupts him before he can spell it out. He doesn’t think he wants to hear what Illya has to say.

“Honestly, it’s not so bad,” he continues instead. “What are the alternatives? And frankly, there are things much worse than this.”

He gives Illya a reassuring smile, wondering when it became his responsibility to calm down Illya over a job _he_ will be doing, but Illya doesn’t return his smile, just looks at him silently for a very long time.

“Yes,” he says eventually, and there is an undertone in his voice that makes Napoleon’s blood run cold. “Yes, it is true. There are always things that are worse.”

 

He wakes with a jolt, his heart racing, but when he sits up in bed, he cannot remember if it was a nightmare that woke him up. He sits, hands twisted together on the covers, and waits for his breath to slow as he watches the shadows wander across the walls.

When his heartbeat goes back to normal and the rush of the blood in his ears subsides, he realizes that there are noises coming from his mother’s room. Maybe what woke him up also woke her. His legs get tangled in the sheets when he slides out of bed, and the floorboards are cold underneath his feet, the hallway dark. The door to his mother’s room is closed, but there is light shining through the crack underneath, and he only hesitates for a moment before he presses down the handle.

His mother is awake, and she is not alone.

“We have company,” Sudoplatov says, amused, and his mother makes a strangled noise and pulls the sheets up to her chin, the way she never did when Illya walked in on her and the father.

He remembers how they would laugh, a little breathless maybe. Make yourself some tea, Illyusha, we’ll be right there, his mother would say, and his father would smile at them both and run his hand over his mother’s hair while he waited for Illya to shut the door from the outside.

Now, she curls up into herself and does not look at him at all, and Sudoplatov gives him a long look and smiles: “Hello, pretty boy.”

“Illyusha,” his mother says tonelessly, her face still turned away. “Illyusha, please leave.”

“Hm,” Sudoplatov makes thoughtfully, “I think perhaps he should stay.” He gestures at the lone chair in the corner of the room. “Why don’t you sit, boy,” he says, and it is not a question at all.

“Please,” Illya’s mother says, and her voice sounds like it is about to come apart at the seams. “Please, just let him leave.” She puts a tentative hand against the man’s shoulder, but he shakes her off, annoyed, and does not take his eyes from Illya’s face.

“Sit, I said,” Sudoplatov repeats, a sharp edge to his words. And Illya wants to obey, wants to run, wants to hide, disappear into thin air, but he is frozen in place once again, transfixed by the man’s threatening glare and his mother’s terrified voice.

Sudoplatov growls, annoyed, and gets up from the bed, the sheets sliding down his naked body as he stands. His hand is like a vice when it closes around Illya’s arm. “Sit, boy,” he says again, and steers him towards the chair. Illya stumbles when the back of his legs hit the chair, and he slumps into the seat, his knee twisting awkwardly with the fall. The man looms over him, hiding his mother from view, and Illya stares at the expanse of flesh in front of him, the mole on his left pectoral, the graying hair on his chest.

“Good boy,” the man says, satisfied, and pats Illya’s head, careless and amused, the way Ilona’s father pets the family dog. “Now stay,” he says, a man to his dog, and returns to the bed, not once looking back to see whether Illya obeys.

“It will be good for him,” he says, and Illya’s mother sobs quietly into the sheets, just once. “Perhaps it will teach him to be a man.” He laughs, and reaches for the woman as he pulls the covers over them both.

“And with a father like that, how else is he going to learn.”

 

It’s unfortunate timing, really, that they are interrupted when Napoleon is just finally beginning to have fun. Of course, it’s certainly not Florentine’s fault if it takes him a bit longer than usual to get interested in the game – the woman’s talents in the bedroom are clearly wasted on her corrupt idiot of a husband, Napoleon thinks, somewhat chagrined. She had been a good sport about accepting his apology, too, and Napoleon decides that since he gets to take advantage of her skills while Illya is shifting through her husband’s private belongings two stories down, it only seems fair that she should at least enjoy herself as well.

So yes, it is a bit frustrating when the door opens to reveal Monsieur Beauchene just as Florentine is about to climax from his teasing fingers against her clit, but Napoleon has dealt with angry husbands before. Much more inconvenient is that Beauchene is followed by Herr Füssli, who happens to be holding a disheveled Gaby at gunpoint as he drags her into the room.

“ _Wer hätte das gedacht_ ,” Füssli says jovially when Napoleon and Florentine jerk apart, and pulls Gaby closer to his side. “This night is just full of surprises.”

Monsieur Beauchene, less composed, calls his wife some uncharitable names in French, which Florentine returns with some of her own, not even caring to cover herself as she shouts at him, with all the viciousness of a woman deprived of orgasmic joy.

“Look,” Napoleon says smoothly over the sound of _pute_ and _enculé_ and raises his hands, playing the arrogant, harmless Don Juan. “I can see how this looks like a somewhat compromising situation, but wouldn’t you agree that this is a merely domestic dispute? It seems to me that this is a matter to be resolved between me and Florentine’s marvelous husband. No need for this kind of unpleasantness, or really, the involvement of third parties – that is, unlike you are just here to join in on the fun.”

Füssli laughs derisively and trails the muzzle of his gun down Gaby’s face. She keeps still until it meets her throat, then makes a tiny, involuntary noise. Her eyes meet Napoleon’s for a second, then her gaze jerks away.

“A fascinating story,” Füssli says slowly, “which would be so much more convincing if I hadn’t found Mademoiselle going through the personal safe in my room. Apparently you were not the only one taking advantage of my business dinner with Monsieur Beauchene tonight.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Napoleon says quickly, the lie easy on his tongue, “and I only met Madame at the hotel bar last week. I believe she is on her –“

– _honeymoon_ , he says, but his voice is drowned out by a gunshot, echoing too loudly in the narrow hotel room. Monsieur Beauchene falls backwards, cut off mid-rant, a hole blooming in the center of his forehead and quickly filling with blood.

Madame Beauchene sobs, hysterical, and Napoleon quickly wraps an arm around her and pulls her close, less to spare her the sight of her dead husband than to muffle the sound of her wailing with his bare chest.

“Was this really necessary?” he asks reproachfully, because he hates this kind of superfluous mess, but Füssli ignores him, instead shoves Gaby towards the bed. She tumbles onto the mattress, falls awkwardly across Napoleon’s shins, and props herself up on his thigh just as Füssli trains his weapon on the three of them.

“I’m afraid it was,” the man responds, annoyed. “And I blame you. The man owed me five million francs – Swiss Francs, to be clear – and that’s money I’m never going to see, so you understand that I’m a little bit disappointed at this turn of events. You can make it up to me by telling me who you are working for. If you cooperate, I might be convinced to make it quick.”

“Well.” Napoleon smiles, as widely as he can manage with Florentine sobbing into his shoulder and Gaby digging into his knee, but before he can decide on a course of action, the door to the hotel room opens again.

“Who are you?” Füssli growls, and angrily waves the gun at the latest intruder, then quickly back at the bed.

In the doorway, Illya stares at the weapon, wide-eyed, and raises his hands over his head, a helpless tourist being robbed on his honeymoon. Napoleon notices, with some pride, that he’s close to perfecting the role.

“I’m just looking for my wife,” he says, his accent heavy and unfamiliar, Polish perhaps. “Sabine,” he shouts at Gaby, lounging awkwardly between Napoleon and the naked, sobbing Florentine. “Sabine, _was ist hier los_?”

Gaby scrambles into a seated position, wringing her hands in front of her chest. “ _Sei nicht böse, Schatz_ ,” she pleads, playing along, “I can explain.”

Füssli actually stomps his foot, as if he’s wondering what kind of farce he has stumbled into. But when Illya makes to move towards the bed, he pulls his gun up again quickly, points it straight at Illya’s chest.

“I really want to find out what is going on here,” he says coldly. “Perhaps, if you aren’t lying and this is really your wife, you would like to find out too. So be a good boy and have a seat in that chair by the bed, while I try to figure out which one of these whimpering idiots I’m going to shoot next.” His look turns thoughtful. “Perhaps I’ll get better acquainted with your wife as well. Perhaps I’ll make you watch.” He smirks. “Who knows, you might find that you like it, in the end.”

The violent shiver that goes through Illya’s body at Füssli’s words is hard to miss, but Napoleon wonders if anyone else can see the dangerous gleam in his eyes, the coiled tension in his back, the caged tiger preparing to jump.

“I think I would rather stand,” Illya says quietly, and there is something in his voice that makes goosebumps rise on Napoleon’s skin. He scoots a bit higher against the wall, wary, alert, because something is about to happen, and when it does, he wants to be ready for it.

“I don’t believe you understand,” Füssli says harshly, and his finger twitches nervously against the trigger, once. “I’m not giving you a choice. Sit down, I said. Be a good boy.”

There is a moment, the pause between two heartbeats, when everything seems to freeze. Napoleon feels the wetness of Florentine’s tears against his shoulder, feels the pressure of Gaby’s hip against his knee, feels the sharp twinge in his chest when Illya turns his head and looks him in the eye, his gaze dark and hot and cold.

The next second, there is a blur of movement, a strangled shout, and when Napoleon’s heart thumps once more in his ribcage, Füssli is on the floor, his blood soaking into the crème-colored rug.

A breath of silence, then Florentine sobs again.

“Well,” Gaby says dryly and finally scoots off Napoleon’s knee. She makes sure to step around the bodies as she begins to collect Napoleon’s clothes from the floor and throws them at him, one by one. “I think we better get out of here.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Napoleon says and slips into his pants with practiced ease. But his eyes are still on Illya, standing in the middle of the room, trembling like a purebred horse after a race, blood on his jacket, a wild look in his eyes.

“We need to go,” Gaby says softly, and touches Illya’s elbow with a gentle hand.

Illya flinches, and exhales.

“Yes,” he says, and sounds like he is very far away. “Yes, is time to go.”

 

There are other nights, there are other men, and his mother stops looking him in the eye. A year later, Illya breaks another boy’s jaw in a fit of rage, but when he is confronted about it after, he has no recollection of a fight. Halfway through the interrogation, his right hand starts trembling against his leg, and after that day, the tremor never quite stops.

 

They make it out of the hotel without incident, even though it means tying Florentine up a bit, which Napoleon very much regrets. At least this way, he tells himself, she won’t be implicated in her husband’s death.

He is more worried about Illya, who has not fully come back to himself since Füssli’s threats, who is still shaking and breathing too hard, and can’t look either of them in the eye. They have secured the files from Füssli’s safe and the evidence from Beauchene’s room, piled into the Renault 4 that had come with Illya and Gaby’s cover and driven up to La Trinité, where they are hiding for the night in an abandoned cottage just outside town, waiting for orders from Waverly and catching their breaths.

Gaby claims the bathroom when she realizes that there is hot water and a cast-iron tub, although Napoleon suspects that she is also trying to get away from the stifling tension in the air, the nervous energy emanating from Illya, like static electricity. Napoleon makes sure that the bathroom door is closed behind her, then steps out onto the back porch, where Illya is pacing again, moving in circles around an old open fire grill.

“Illya,” Napoleon says, when the man walks past him for the fifth time. “Illya, are you okay?”

Illya pauses, not two feet away, but he still doesn’t look at him, his head bent low, hands curled into fists, as if he is waiting – for what, Napoleon doesn’t know.

Napoleon takes a deep breath and exhales, a sharp noise in the silence. Slowly, he pushes away from the wall, and carefully puts a hand against Illya’s arm, feels the muscles coiled impossibly tight underneath the thin fabric of his shirt.

As if Napoleon’s touch has set off a spring, as if this is what he’s been waiting for, Illya moves. Suddenly Illya is on him, around him, pushing him, shoving him, until Napoleon’s head hits the wall of the house, and with detached curiosity Napoleon wonders whether he is about to be hit again.

Then Illya’s lips are pressing against his, without any finesse, barely even a kiss, just open-mouthed hunger and slick despair, and Illya’s broad hands are keeping him in place, one palm against his neck, the other sliding against his hip.

“Oh God,” Napoleon groans against Illya’s mouth, and melts into him without hesitation, scrambles to get his own hands on him, because he has missed this, craved this, craved Illya, this vice on the verge of becoming an addiction. There is saliva trickling down his chin, and Illya’s teeth catch against his lip, Illya’s hand is like a brand on his neck, bound to bruise, and Napoleon wants it all.

He slides a hand down the broad expanse of Illya’s back, fingers curling around the curve of his ass. Illya growls and bucks against him, and this is how they do it, rutting fully-clothed against the crumbling wall of the cottage, clawing and biting until they both spend in a shuddering climax that leaves them both shaking and undone.

After, Napoleon comes back to Illya’s mouth against his throat, his hands against his face, the weight of his body still pressing him against the wall. Napoleon laughs quietly, or perhaps it’s a sob, and runs his fingers over the nape of Illya’s neck, pleased with the tiny mewling sound he draws with his touch.

“Please tell me you have changed your mind about this,” he says, pleads, because _Christ_ , he will beg if he has to, will get to his knees, if only he does not have to do without this ever again.

Illya sighs against his collarbone, a soft, shaky noise. “I lost control over a word,” he says, not quite a yes, and Napoleon runs his hands up and down Illya’s back, grappling for hold.

“I know, I know,” he says quickly, urgently, “I’m sorry, I won’t say it again, I saw what it did to you today.” He closes his eyes. “I won’t do that to you.”

Illya makes a noise of defeat, his shoulders slump.

“Is still bad idea,” he whispers, but his hands keep up their caress of Napoleon’s face, and he does not step away. “I am not –“ he pauses, his mouth working against Napoleon’s skin in undecipherable Russian –

“I am not whole.”

Napoleon hisses, swears in all the languages he knows so that he does not have to give in to the tears pooling behind his eyes. He moves his hands to Illya’s jaw, framing his face on both sides, lifting it until they are nose to nose, their foreheads touching.

“This is who you are, Illyusha,” he says. “All of you.”

 

The Mediterranean is beautiful around this time of year.

 

They don’t go further than Monaco. As far as they know, both Füssli and Beauchene were operating alone, no reason to assume that an unknown organization will come after them to take revenge. Still, it’s a realistic assumption that the French police will get curious about two dead men and a hysterical woman, bound and gagged, in the most esteemed hotel in Nice, and so they lay low for two days in a luxurious villa outside of Monte-Carlo, until Waverly can organize a safe transport to London, then back to the US.

The oppressive summer heat has given way to the pleasant warmth of late August, the sea reflecting a dark-blue sky dotted with white clouds. Gaby and Napoleon put on their bathing suits and play together in the waves. Illya sits sideways in a pool chair on the terrace and plays chess with himself.

“Hey,” Napoleon says, climbing up the stairs to the patio, haphazardly running a towel over his neck and chest. He doesn’t really feel the need to dry off, but he enjoys the way Illya follows the movement with his eyes, as if he can’t quite help it, despite himself.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come join us?” he asks, and drops the towel to the ground. “The water is amazing today.”

Illya shakes his head, but there is a slight smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “Was saving me from drowning once not enough for you?” he asks, and Napoleon laughs and throws himself onto the chaise next to Illya’s, wet hair and sprawling limbs and salt on his skin.

“Maybe I just like playing your hero,” he half-jokes, and then pretends to be offended when Illya snorts, for a whole two seconds at least.

“Got a present for you,” he says and leans over to set the small seashell into the center of the chessboard, between the white queen and the black knight. He reclines back in his chair as quickly as he can without it appearing awkward, and uses his arm to shield his eyes from the sun.

Illya doesn’t respond right away, and Napoleon is glad that his face is hidden in the crook of his elbow, that he can blame the faint flush of embarrassment on the sun. He had bent to pick the shell up on an impulse, not quite knowing why, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time. It was a silly thing to do, he now thinks ruefully, and is still waiting for Illya to reprimand him for his capitalist notion of romantic gestures, when he realizes that the silence has lasted far too long.

He shifts his arm and blinks against the sun, only to find Illya balancing the seashell on one flat palm, staring at it with an expression that makes Napoleon sit up in his chair.

The movement causes Illya to turn his head, and he looks at Napoleon with wide eyes. “What is this?” he asks, his voice unsteady, brittle.

“It’s just the shell of a sea snail,” Napoleon says warily. “I found it down at the beach. The call them rapa whelk, I believe.” Illya is still staring, so he keeps rambling, not even caring if he’s making a fool of himself. “It’s nothing special, they are common in a lot of places, like East Asia and the –“

“– the Black Sea, yes, I know,” Illya says softly, and Napoleon feels a prickling in the back of his neck.

“Illya,” he says, but Illya moves before he can decide what he is going to say. He folds his hand around the seashell, gripping it tight, then leans over and wraps his free hand around Napoleon’s wrist. For a moment, his thumb rubs against Napoleon’s pulse point, possessive and firm, then he lifts both their hands and presses a kiss against the inside of Napoleon’s wrist.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, and when he looks up, Napoleon is shocked to see that his eyes are damp.

“Illya – what –“ He tries, helplessly, strangled, and shivers when Illya’s thumb once more strokes the sensitive skin of his wrist.

“I owe you a story, I believe,” Illya finally says. He lets go of Napoleon’s hand, sits back in his chair and opens his fist, stares at the sea snail in his palm.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Napoleon hears himself say, but Illya smiles down at the seashell and shakes his head.

“I do,” he says softly, and takes a deep breath.

Far away, faintly, they hear the sound of the waves rolling against the shore.

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:
> 
> Da, mama (Russian): Yes, mom.  
> Deux autres, s’il-vous-plaît (French): Two more, please!  
> Enculé (French): Bugger  
> Ennui (French): Boredom  
> Flitterwochen (German): Honeymoon  
> Grazhdanin/grazhdanka (Russian): Citizen (used as part of formal address like Mr./Ms.)  
> Je suis désolé, ma cherie (French): I’m so sorry, my dear.  
> Pute (French): Whore  
> Sei nicht böse, Schatz (German): Don’t be angry, darling.  
> Sledovatel (Russian): Detective  
> Was ist hier los? (German): What’s going on here?  
> Wer hätte das gedacht (German): Who would have thought. 
> 
>  
> 
> Clarification regarding tags/warnings:  
> Part of this story deals with Illya's childhood, set during the era of the Stalinist purge in Russia. In the aftermath of Illya's father's arrest, Illya's mother is blackmailed/pressured into having sex with an officer of the Secret Police. At some point, Illya is forced to watch his mother and her abuser have sex. I identify Illya's abuse as primarily psychological/emotional, but you could certainly make an argument that it is ultimately sexual in nature. It is implied that these events have caused Illya's PTSD, and have contributed to the triggering of the psychosis he may or may not have developed over time.


End file.
